It is estimated that approximately 28 million people in the United States, including 1.46 million children, have a hearing deficiency in frequencies important to the understanding of speech. Early identification of hearing loss and appropriate intervention can be critical to preventing or ameliorating further hearing loss or language delay or disorder. Indeed, early identification can be particularly important in children who are, typically, more receptive to rehabilitation.
Conventional hearing evaluation or assessment tests are performed in a clinical setting with personal interaction between the patient and a clinician. In these settings, the patient is often required to sit in a sound isolation booth and to visually signal to the clinician when sounds generated from an audiometer become audible. Unfortunately, this clinic or office setting structure can be burdensome and time consuming, particularly for those individuals located in remote or rural regions for whom access to audiological specialists may be limited or the cost of transportation to a clinic or office may be unaffordable, or in industrial settings where frequent or periodical screenings may be beneficial.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,916,291 describes a diagnostic hearing system distributed via a computer network that allows interaction between an audiologist and a patient during a test session.
Despite the above, there remains a need for alternative Internet-based diagnostic hearing systems.